Thursday, October 31, 2013

Hillary
Clinton spoke at two separate Goldman Sachs events on the evenings of
Thursday, October 24 and Tuesday, October 29. As both Politico and the New York Times
report, Clinton’s fee is about $200,000 per speech, meaning she likely
netted around $400,000 for her paid gigs at Goldman over the course of
six days.
Last Thursday, Clinton spoke for the AIMS Alternative
Investment Conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, a closed event
exclusively for Goldman clients. AIMS is an annual conference that
explores the latest strategies and products available to financial
advisers. At the event, Clinton offered what one attendee described to
me as “prepared remarks followed by questions.”
On Tuesday, Clinton spoke at the Builders and Innovators Summit, devoted to discussing entrepreneurship and how to help innovators expand and grow their businesses. According to Politico,
Clinton conducted a question-and-answer session with Goldman CEO Lloyd
Blankfein. Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the subject of her
remarks or why Mrs. Clinton in particular was invited to the events.
Keeping close to the investment world, Clinton also made visits to private-equity firms KKR in July and the Carlyle Group
in September. At KKR’s annual investor meeting in California, Clinton
answered questions from firm co-founder Henry Kravis on the Middle East,
Washington, and politics. At Carlyle Group, Clinton made a speech to
shareholders moderated by Carlyle founder David Rubenstein.
Clinton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Seven football thugs jailed for chanting songs to 'glorify and idolise' Stephen Lawrence murderer days after conviction

Charlton Athletic fans had been at FA Cup match against Fulham in 2012

Jailed for abusive behaviour on train from Putney to Waterloo in London

Seven fans convicted of causing racially aggravated fear of violence

Chanted in support of Gary Dobson, three days after he was convicted

Seven football supporters who chanted songs that ‘glorified and idolised’ the murderer of Stephen Lawrence were jailed today.The
Charlton Athletic fans, who had been at an FA Cup match against Fulham
in January 2012, were jailed for their abusive behaviour on a train from
Putney to Waterloo in south-west London. The
men - aged from 22 to 31, who had been at Craven Cottage - were
convicted of causing racially aggravated fear of violence after
witnesses complained of sexual and racially motivated abuse.

Guilty: Ben Boylett (left) was sentenced to 12
months in prison and an eight-year football banning order and Sean Fowle
(right) received eight months in prison and an eight-year football
banning
order

Punished: Jake Embery (left) was sentenced to
six months in prison suspended for 18 months and a four-year banning order, and Aaron Phinbow (right) was
sentenced to eight months in prison and given a eight-year ban

British Transport Police said the
group chanted in support of Gary Dobson, three days after he was
convicted of murdering Stephen Lawrence. They were sentenced today at
Blackfriars Crown Court.Baljit
Ubhey, the Crown Prosecution Service’s London Chief Crown Prosecutor,
said: ‘These men were singing and chanting racist abuse in praise of the
convicted murderers of Stephen Lawrence.

‘To
glorify and idolise these men was disturbing and upsetting. Their
racially and sexually abusive language left members of the public
shocked and disgusted. ‘Witnesses
said they felt intimidated and feared there was a real and significant
risk of violence. I would like to thank the witnesses who came forward
and gave evidence to support this prosecution.

Sentenced: Jason Butler (left) was given 12
months in prison and an eight-year football banning order, and David
Bone (right) was handed 18 months in prison and an eight-year football
banning order

In court: Daniel Clay (left) was sentenced to 18
months in prison and given an eight-year ban. The group chanted in
support of Gary Dobson (right), three days after he was convicted of
murdering Stephen Lawrence

‘I hope these convictions stand as a warning that racist and abusive behaviour will not be tolerated in our city.’

'To
glorify and idolise these men was disturbing and upsetting. Their
racially and sexually abusive language left members of the public
shocked and disgusted'Baljit Ubhey, Crown Prosecution Service

Mick
Everett, Charlton FC's Head of Operations, said: ‘The club was shocked
to hear of the rowdy, intimidating behaviour, and the chanting of racist
songs on a train by a handful of our supporters.‘Their actions are totally condemned by everyone at the club and indeed, I am sure, by Charlton supporters everywhere.‘Although
this isolated incident does not reflect on the overwhelming majority of
our fans, these arrests are a kick in the teeth to everyone associated
with the club, who have put so much effort into our campaign over the
years.

Ground: The fans were at an FA Cup game against Fulham at Craven Cottage (pictured) in South-West London

‘The club will now look to impose additional appropriate sanctions on those involved.’

Killed: Stephen Lawrence was murdered in April 1993 in Eltham, south-east London

BTP Detective Sergeant Jane
Hill said: ‘The actions of these men were both offensive and extremely
intimidating to other passengers on board the train at the time.‘An
investigation was swiftly launched to gather evidence and by working
closely with Charlton Athletic FC, coupled with excellent CCTV footage,
intelligence reports and statements from witnesses, we were able to move
quickly to trace the men.’She
added: ‘This minority blight the rail journeys of many ordinary
passengers and stain the reputation of the game and the country. They
also continue to cause us problems that require significant resources to
contain.’David Bone, 23,
of Woolwich, south-east London, and Daniel Clay, 31, of Grove Park,
south-east London, received 18 months in prison and an eight year
football banning order. The
same eight year match ban was imposed on Ben Boylett, 26, of London,
and Jason Butler, 31, of Abbey Wood, south-east London, who were also
given one year in prison. Sean
Fowle and Aaron Phinbow, both also of Abbey Wood and aged 25, also
received an eight year ban and eight months behind bars. Jake
Embery, 22, of Orpington, south-east London, was given a six month
suspended sentence, a four year match ban and ordered to pay £3,000
costs.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Former heads of state call on EU to set up state surveillance of ‘intolerant’ citizens

Former
Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and Moshe Kantor, President of
the European Jewish Congress, at the European Council on Tolerance and
Reconciliation's inaugural meeting in 2008.

Credit: WorldHolocaustForum.org

ROME, October 16, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– A council of former heads of state and government leaders has called
on the European Union to establish national surveillance units to
monitor citizens of all 27 EU member states suspected of “intolerance”.
The European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), a
“tolerance watchdog” launched under the leadership of former Polish
president Aleksander Kwasniewski and Moshe Kantor, President of the
European Jewish Congress, called for the establishment of government
surveillance bodies to directly monitor the “intolerant” behavior of
identified citizens and groups.
The council, which includes former presidents of the Czech Republic,
Slovenia, Albania, Latvia, and Cyprus, and former prime ministers of
Spain and Sweden, made the proposal in a report delivered during a
45-minute speech to the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil
Liberties (LIBE).
These “special administrative units,” the report says, “should preferably operate within the Ministry of Justice.”
“There is no need to be tolerant to the intolerant,” it states, especially “as far as freedom of expression is concerned.”
The ECTR called its proposal the “Framework National Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance”
and presented it as part of the EU’s work towards a new “Equal
Treatment Directive” (ETD), published under the title, “Proposal for a
Council Directive on implementing the principle for equal treatment
between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or
sexual orientation”.
European Dignity Watch, a civil rights watchdog group based in
Brussels, has warned that this directive “aims to impose governmental
control over the social and economic behavior of citizens in the widest
possible sense.”
In a scathing critique, the group says that the ECTR Framework’s basic
principles are flawed and that it “interferes in an unprecedented manner
with citizens’ freedom and rights” and “distorts the concepts of
‘justice’ and ‘equality’.”
Through “a reversal of the burden of proof,” the proposal “encourages
frivolous litigation” and will lead to “institutionalized public
control” of private opinion and thought, they say.
The Framework demands the outlawing of “group libel” that it defines as
“defamatory comments made in public and aimed against a group…or
members thereof, with a view to inciting to violence, slandering the
group, holding it to ridicule or subjecting it to false charges.”
It adds that “group libel” “may appear to be aimed at members of the
group in a different time (another historical era) or place (beyond the
borders of the State).”
Subject to criminal sanctions would be any “hate crimes” that would
include not only “incitement to violence” but “overt approval of a
totalitarian ideology, xenophobia or anti-Semitism.”
“Members of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups” it adds, “are entitled
to a special protection” in addition to the normal legal protections
afforded by the state. This “special protection…may imply a preferential
treatment” for those identified as “vulnerable”.
The Framework said it hopes to take “concrete action to combat
intolerance, in particular with a view to eliminating racism, colour
bias, ethnic discrimination, religious intolerance, totalitarian
ideologies, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-feminism and homophobia.”
The document proposes not only to outlaw what it defines as
“intolerance” by governments, but also by individual citizens. It says,
“It is important to stress that tolerance must be practised not only by
Governmental bodies but equally by individuals, including members of one
group vis-à-vis another.” It adds that the “guarantee of tolerance must
be understood not only as a vertical relationship
(Government-to-individuals) but also as a horizontal relationship
(group-to-group and person-to-person).
“It is the obligation of the Government to ensure that intolerance is
not practised either in vertical or in horizontal relationships,” it
states.
Sophia Kuby, spokesman for European Dignity Watch, said
the Framework betrays the essentially totalitarian mindset of
significant elements within the European Union’s apparatus. The
document, if adopted by the European Parliament, she said, “could lead
to situations in which vague or unwarranted accusations are leveled
against individuals and groups.”
“Faith-based groups and schools, adherents of a particular religion or
even just parents who want to teach their children certain moral values
would all be put under general suspicion of being intolerant.”
“Even worse,” she said, this language “could lead to the possibility
that charges are brought on unclear or even without legal grounds.” She
said it would “be a significant step backward,” and “would certainly be a
dark day for European democracy.”http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/former-heads-of-state-call-on-eu-to-set-up-state-surveillance-of-intolerant

Speaking before a capacity Jewish
audience at New York’s Yeshiva University, Adelson asked “What are we
going to negotiate about?” with reference to Iran.

“What I would say is, ‘Listen.
You see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …You pick
up your cellphone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK
let it go.’ And so there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic
missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a
couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever. And then you say,
‘See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran.’ So, we mean business.”

The title of the forum where Adelson
made his comments was, significantly, entitled “Iran, Assimilation and
the Threat to Israel and Jewish Survival.”

It was moderated by orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who, according to the Times of Israel,
is nicknamed “America’s Rabbi” because he is famous for “promoting
Judaism and Jewish values through mainstream American media.”

Adelson is also the publisher of Israel’s widest-read newspaper, the free Israel Hayom daily.

Adelson’s comments—and the very nature
and title of the conference where he spoke—reveals precisely how Jewish
Supremacists see themselves in terms of America, Israel and the world.

Firstly, they are primarily concerned
with Jewish survival above all else. This is why the conference was
about the “threat” of assimilation and “Jewish Survival.”

Thirdly, it shows that they regard
America as merely a tool to enforce Jewish Supremacist policy in the
world: in this case, they actually want the US to nuke Iran based purely
on the easily disproven Zionist lies about Iran’s nuclear energy
program.

Fortunately, the Jewish Supremacists
like Adelson who want to nuke Iran will at this stage probably not get
their way—but the open demand for such action reveals exactly how they
think about it, and their naked desire to exterminate anyone who dares
to opposed Zionist Supremacism and what they see as their God-given
right to rule over the despised Goyim.

Can the reader imagine what the reaction of Jewish
Supremacists such as the SPLC, the ADL etc. would be if a leading
European-American businessman such as Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos had to
speak at a public conference calling for opposition to assimilation with
Jews?Yet Adelson, who is the single largest contributor to
American politics, and one of the most well-known people in the world,
can speak at a conference opposing assimilation with gentiles without a
squeak of protest from the Jewish Supremacists and their controlled
media.Can the reader imagine what the reaction of Jewish
Supremacists such as the SPLC, the ADL etc. would be if a leading
European-American had to call for the nuking of Israel if that nation
refused to abandon its nuclear weapons? (which are real, ass opposed to
Iran’s.)Yet Adelson, who is the single largest contributor to American politics, and one of the most well-known people in the world, can
speak at a conference calling for the nuking of Iran without a squeak
of protest from the Jewish Supremacists and their controlled media.This fact tells the reader all he or she needs to know about
who controls the media—and that the Jewish Supremacist power structure
has to be broken if America is ever to be free.http://davidduke.com/jewish-extremists-dominate-american-political-funding-want-nuke-iran/

Greek leftists clash with Golden Dawn supporters

World

Saturday 26 October 2013 - 8:03pm

Supporters
of ultra nationalist party Golden Dawn hold Greek flags and shout
slogans as they demonstrate on October 26, 2013. Picture: AFP

ATHENS
- Greek leftists and members of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn faced
off in Athens on Saturday over a protest organised against the
indictment of several Golden Dawn members in a government crackdown.
Hundreds of leftist protesters and some 2,000 neo-Nazi supporters
gathered near Golden Dawn offices in central Athens, an reporter on the
scene said.
Police trucks were positioned to keep the rival groups apart, before the leftists dispersed without incident.
The wife of Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos, who is in jail
awaiting trial, said the party had "millions" of supporters and would
emerge triumphant.

Put the murderers in prison and smash the para-state of Golden Dawn.

Related Stories

"Millions of Greeks follow us. Rest assured that
with our leader in the front line, we will take our country back," Eleni
Zaroulia told the crowd.
Anti-fascist groups wanted to stop the Golden Dawn gathering from going ahead altogether.
"Put the murderers in prison and smash the para-state of Golden
Dawn," read a banner carried by the protesters, alluding to the
neo-Nazis suspected sympathies among Greek police.
The demonstration came as authorities prepared to hit additional
senior Golden Dawn members with fresh charges as early as next week,
following a move by parliament to cut the party's state funding.
Golden Dawn leader Michaloliakos, deputy party leader Christos Pappas
and party MP Yiannis Lagos are already being held in a high-security
Athens prison on charges of running or belonging to a criminal group.
In total six of the party's MPs have been charged in connection with
the investigation, which was prompted by the murder of an anti-fascist
musician by a self-confessed neo-Nazi last month.
No trial date has been set for the indicted lawmakers. If convicted, each accused faces at least 10 years in prison.
Golden Dawn on Saturday said the government crackdown was "unfair, illegal, unconstitutional and purely political persecution".
"The real purpose of this dirty war of mud is the political
extermination of Golden Dawn, the only political force resisting the
(austerity) storm," the party said in a statement.
Golden Dawn is Greece's third most popular party, with 18 seats in parliament.
Formerly on the fringe of Greek politics, the group boosted its
popularity by tapping into widespread anger over immigration and
austerity reforms in debt-wracked Greece, which is slogging through its
sixth year of recession and where youth unemployment stands at 60%.
But the September 18 murder of hip hop artist Pavlos Fyssas by a
Golden Dawn supporter triggered public outrage, putting pressure on
Greek authorities to take action against the party.
Court documents have linked Golden Dawn to two murders including that of Fyssas, three attempted murders and numerous assaults.
Witnesses have also testified that senior party members were involved
in migrant beatings, extortion and possible arms smuggling.
A number of police officers have also been arrested in connection
with the investigation for allegedly aiding the group or turning a blind
eye to its activities.http://www.enca.com/world/greek-leftists-face-against-golden-dawn-supporters

Friday, October 25, 2013

Was ISRAEL behind the hacking of millions of French phones and NOT the U.S.? Extraordinary twist in spying saga revealed

Agents said to have intercepted 70 million calls and text messages a month

France had previously blamed the United States of America

U.S. was first suspected of hacking into Nicolas Sarkozy's phone in 2012

Americans insisted they have never been behind hacking in France

Comes
after it emerged German officials are planning trip to U.S. to discuss
allegations Angela Merkel's phone was hack by the NSA

The
German Chancellor said President Obama's reputation has been shattered
on an international scale because of espionage scandal

Israel and not America was behind the hacking of millions of French phones, it was claimed today.In
the latest extraordinary twist in the global eavesdropping scandal,
Israeli agents are said to have intercepted more than 70 million calls
and text messages a month. Up until now the French have been blaming the U.S., even summoning the country’s Paris ambassador to provide an explanation.

France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into
former president Nicolas Sarkozy's communications network when he was
unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012

But today’s Le Monde newspaper provides evidence that it was in fact Israeli agents who were listening in. France
first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas
Sarkozy’s communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for
re-election in 2012.Intelligence
officials Bernard Barbier and Patrick Pailloux travelled from Paris to
Washington to demand an explanation, but the Americans hinted that the
Israelis were to blame.

The Americans insisted they
have never been behind any hacking in France, and were always keen to
get on with the French, whom they viewed as some of their closest
allies. They were so
determined to be friends with the French, that U.S. briefing notes
included details of how to pronounce the names of the Gallic officials. A
note published in Le Monde shows that the Americans refused to rule out
Mossad, Israel’s notoriously uncompromising intelligence agency, or the
ISNU, Israel’s cyber-intelligence unit.

Tailored Access
Operations (TAO), the branch of the US National Security Agency (NSA)
which deals with cyber-attacks, is referred to throughout the note. It reads: ‘TAO intentionally did not
ask either Mossad or ISNU whether they were involved as France is not an
approved target for joint discussions.’Le
Monde’s article, co-authored by U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose
main contact is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, however, hints that
the Israelis were doing the spying. Both
US and French intelligence work closely with Mossad, but there is known
to be a great deal of suspicion between all the agencies. A
2008 NSA note says that the Israelis are ‘excellent partners in terms
of sharing information’, but it also says that Mossad is ‘the third most
aggressive intelligence service in the world against the United
States’.A spokesman
for the Israeli government told Le Monde: ‘Israel is a country which is a
friend, ally and partner of France and does not carry out any hostile
activity which could pose a threat to its security.’France
has complained in the past about Mossad's use of its soil to plan so
called black operations including the 2010 assassination in Dubai of
Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh of the Palestinian movement Hamas.The revelation comes after senior
German officials said they would be travelling to the U.S. 'shortly' to
talk about allegations the NSA bugged Angela Merkel's phone.

Anger: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left)
and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff (right) have both voiced concerns over the
NSA's infiltration of the online communications of foreigners

The
heads of Germany's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies will
participate in high-level discussions with the White House and National
Security Agency, government spokesman Georg Streiter said.News
of the talks signals an escalation in the diplomatic tensions between
the U.S. and its allies after it was claimed the NSA had monitored the
calls of 35 world leaders.Brazil
and Germany have joined forces in an attempt to pile pressure on the
United Nations to rein in the snooping activities. They want a UN
General Resolution that promotes the right to online privacy.This
step, the first major international response to the NSA's infiltration
of the online communications of foreigners, comes after German
Chancellor Merkel said the recent U.S. espionage scandal has shattered
international trust in Barack Obama.

Angela Merkel said the recent espionage scandal has shattered international trust in President Obama

Not hacked: The White House has denied that David Cameron's communications were ever monitored

A month earlier
Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff branded the NSA's clandestine
activities 'a breach of international law' in a speech to the UN General
Assembly and demanded steps be made to stop 'cyberspace from being used
as a weapon of war'.Brazilian
and German diplomats met in New York yesterday to thrash out a draft
resolution demanding the strengthening of privacy rights in the
International Covenant Civil and Political Rights.While
the UN has no real power to reign in the NSA, there are fears among
security experts that the effort alone could signal a growing consensus
to freeze the US out of future international security dialogues.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

This is an exclusive Golden Dawn
New York English translation of an interview done for the Newspaper
“Stoxos” (Target) by the editor of that paper, Dimitra Mylonas.

It was Saturday morning, September 28th
when Nikolaos Michaloliakos leader of Golden Dawn was arrested, in an
unprecedented political move that happened in “Democratic” Greece, the
country that claims to be a “Temple for Democracy”.It was in the early morning of October 3rd when the presiding judge decided to remand Nikos Michaloliakos. During this time the entire media
moved in an unprecedented attack using any means necessary to slander
“Golden Dawn” with no regard for what is true and what is not, false
hidden polls and obvious manipulation. During this time, none of these “valid” and “reputable” journalists gave any chance for a representative of the “Golden Dawn” to respond. Very Democratic! Stoxos
makes an exclusive interview with the inmate at Korydallos prison,
political prisoner, Nikos Michaloliakos, the Director of the newspaper,
Dimitra Mylonas learns the whole truth.- Ethical? Completely unethical. Especially while I was being persecuted for my ideas the same regime just a few weeks ago opened a museum for the greatest slaughterer of Greeks in modern history, Kemal Ataturk.
This scheme they have enacted persecuted myself ,my comrades,the entire
Golden Dawn and Greek nationalists that had the courage to label
traitors those who say “Istanbul”, those who sell out our homeland piece
by piece and have brought disaster and misery to the Greek people.- Mr. Michaloliakos, as a Chief of the
Greek Nationalists and the Golden Dawn, are you aware that whatever you
say can be used against you? “They have seen it with their eyes and
ears and can’t believe it”. Are you aware
that all Greece laughs at the ridiculousness of what is happening? And
with that weapon and humor, and the sympathy for your detainment ,have
Greek nationalists won a battle in society? – The storyline has been developed into a big fiasco. There have been more than 35 investigations in monasteries and homes everywhere. They have not found the famous “thousands of guns” Golden Dawn supposedly has. Naturally they did not find anything and all these falsehoods which they refer to are all garbage.They
say they got this information from “Talking to homeowners” where are
these homeowners, are they Ghosts? Instead they find the exact opposite,
nothing. Golden Dawn has been
consistent in its fight against the plutocracy, that is exactly what
these political figures are who govern our fatherland, we stand against these pimps and the media with it’s political persecution.
Suffice to say, for the dear readers of ‘Stoxos’ these pimps could not
deceive them and neither could the Karamanlis government before.They are the real dictators of this place, they have ordered these wars, they have ordered our political persecution.- Saturday Morning, September 28th. They ring the bell of your house and you hear them say that they have come to arrest you.What are your first feelings and initial thoughts Mr. Michaloliakos? – The first thought that comes to mind is that this is a test. It is a test for each fighter and also a blessing. It’s a chance to prove if your morale is made of iron, if you are loyal to your ideology. What I also think is that the Golden Dawn is so strong now that they scared the whole system, an entire regime. As for the officials who issued the order, Look at them, we know that they are agents of a rotten conspiracy.

- In the days before it changed into a very specific climate, with the epicenter being the Golden Dawn.Not
that I had thought it could never happen, but did you expect that it
would come to this and that the system would reach this point, that of
arresting and imprisoning you?

– The fact of the matter is that it was
not merely days, but whole months (if not years) and in particular from
May 7th , when Golden Dawn reached 7%, there was a very specific
climate, a climate of demonization against the popular nationalist
movement of the Golden Dawn and certainly an attempt to get things to
lead to the current situation.
Certainly this climate had never stopped, as you mention in your
question this climate peaked into the current prosecution and detention
of both myself and two other members of Golden Dawn and maybe more in
the future. You should know that all of this did not spring out of nowhere. If you follow the story characteristics, it happened in”steps”. Aris Ravanos of Nea Demokratia was writing as early as July and August that September is the month that Nea Demokratia will deal with Golden Dawn and they will try to damage them in any way possible. It was therefore all scheduled. At
this point I want to say that I saw panic in those who were conducting
the secret polls. The Golden Dawn is constantly gaining support despite
the controversy they created and leveraged against us in many dirty
ways, with bloggers, various tricks with newspapers and blacking us out
from the TV channel interviews. It is no coincidence that none of the major channels nationwide had given us a voice.
So then, to conclude with my answer, there was indeed a certain climate
and all this was a planned conspiracy, but it is all slanderous lies
and will fail. Nothing has been proven
and nothing will be proven because the Golden Dawn is as clean as the
crystal water coming up from a mountain spring.- “Listen to us leader and listen
well, you have managed to humiliate the system once again!.”
(translation of a Greek slogan made by nationalists towards
Michaloliakos while he was captive inside the police station) – This is
not just a slogan but a kind of consciousness for Greek Nationalists
and not only them, but also for hundreds of thousands of Greeks who in
this ordeal stand by Golden Dawn even if they don’t completely agree
with them politically. What do you have to say to those people, who had
no doubts right from the beginning? – Indeed, it was Golden Dawn, and not simply myself all along,
the Golden Dawner’s, the nationalists are the patriots who marched us
down the path of virtue, the path of the nationalist struggle,
humiliating the system.
Without having money, without having a TV channel, without having
sponsors, we managed to have 7%, and now have surpassed 20%, according
to surveys conducted lately. You ask me what to say to those standing at my side? I wish them strength, I wish them to have strength, perseverance and move forward. What we need right now, and I say this from behind the prison walls, is more struggle. What is important is not I Michaloliakos, not Golden Dawn, above all what is important is Greece. Right now, Greece is currently lost, it has been sold out. They undermined our armed forces, crime has spread everywhere, they are preparing a new law legalizing essentially illegal immigrants. The Greeks must resist. Fighters and Comrades, have strength and even if we go behind bars we will be on your side.- So how far do you think the system
will go with it’s treason – and what might be hiding behind the
unprecedented persecution of a political party with elected MPs beyond
the obvious political reasons accusing you of treason? – It is unprecedented in the modern
political history of the country, a party with elected MPs having the
leader sent to prison along with members of the movement. It has never been done, even after 74 nor before ’67.
Maybe because for the first time there was a party not belonging to the
club, these dirty political parties, that have led our Fatherland into
this current mess. Because of this it happened for the first time. Because for the first time a truly nationalist party, really for Greece got in the parliament. As for the treason, I can only smile thinking that they would have “limits”.

In the military I
have served on the Greek-Turkish and Greek-Bulgarian border, while
those who accuse us and their political leaders, are the ones who did
the least military service or avoided it completely. And what treason? Betraying a treacherous regime trying to bring it down? Going against it is an act of patriotism.
Who are they who have been “Betrayed”? Those who took down the Greek
Flag from ‘Imia? Those who said Cyprus is too many miles away in 1974?
Those who are preparing for a new Annan Plan in Cyprus? Recently the
statements of the Prime Minister with Anastasiadis want there to be a
new referendum in Cyprus. Preparing the Turkification of the entire Island. Well, these accusations of treason from them do not bother us. We are far more deserving of the name patriots than those who have brought us into the current situation.- What do you think of the possibility
for them to try to outlaw the Golden Dawn and simultaneously attempt to
erect a party coming from the same place but on a much smaller scale
that will follow all the protocols they set, what goes through your mind
about that? – I believe that they have little chance of success in such an endeavor. Besides they lost in the past …
And do not forget the statements of Karatzaferis on the morning show of
the Mega channel, he had said that “if it was me, there would be a real
right-wing.” Meaning of course, right-wing Karatzaferis leading an “independent, free-nationalist movement”.
Indeed this free and unbound nationalist movement – But yet
Karatzaferis failed and has been thrown to the trash in the history of
the Greek people – There is not a way to stop it. The Golden Dawn is not a usual party with a polling rate.
It has become myth, it has become a legend, it has spread to every
corner of Greece at the moment and has sympathies even in political
spaces not imaginable, even the left! Whatever they do, they will fail. The future is ours, the Golden Dawn can not be stopped by any law or any unconstitutional bans.- According to an increasing number of
lawyers in the country and even the criminal justice system, many of
the charges will not hold up in court.What
will happen when the Golden Dawn will start to be vindicated? Has the
government considered this possibility you think? “Does the government
control at all what is happening and what is your political assessment? – Actually many charges have already been dropped. All false witnesses used were either protected or celebrities or people who have no idea what the Golden Dawn is. This was passed off as true for a short period against the Golden Dawn, with these people coached in their responses. In one
instance, a man who we challenged accusing us with financial scandals,
who gave testimony speaking for two owners, without saying who they are. Others for transport of arms and various other fairy tales. Namely those saying these things will do anything … What I mean is where did they find him this witness? They found him in prison where he is there for a criminal offense. Government investigators to find witnesses, they search for prison convicts who are in trouble. Even then, what do they say? What evidence do they give? Nothing! They look nowhere, looking at monasteries and can not prove anything … The charges will surely be dropped. We are innocent. The Golden Dawn has a legitimate political struggle. Its big crime was that the actions were nationalistic. In a protectorate, in a foreign occupied government, the nationalist struggle is a crime. Now as for the government, I do not believe that it has no control over that.
It’s a small group of power around the Prime Minister, which is in
panic from the devastation that resulted from the economic collapse, our
national issues are sold out one after another, and certainly in terms of the Golden Dawn, it will not get votes in the same way that Nea Demokratia got it’s votes in 1977.- As parliamentarians, representing
hundreds of thousands of Greeks who have rights, they not only refuse
to recognize you, but your voters. A few days ago, you made a request to take part in a vote inside the parliament.

– In our case it is a flagrant violation of the Constitution. We represent some of the voters among the Greek people and they prevent us from going to vote in the House .It is yet another illegal and unconstitutional act. We have the laws of Greece on our side and I believe that we will be vindicated.- Mr Michaloliakos for years there were town squares with 200 and 300 hardcore Nationalists.We would like to know what is it that protects Golden Dawn and empowers it as it grows?- The big weapon of the Golden Dawn is that you do not sell nor buy. It is the belief in the idea, the belief in Greece and that God is on our side and we are unwavering.
The Golden Dawn started like a small flame that was once just in the
town squares as you mentioned, from the 200 and 300 hardcore
nationalists, today it has become an unstoppable force that has spread
across the country. The future is ours! Warm greetings to the militant leaders of “Stoxos” and to all readers of this patriotic newspaper.http://xaameriki.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/nikolaos-michaloliakos-persecuted-for-my-ideas-by-an-anti-hellenic-regime/

Saturday, October 19, 2013

UKBA left red-faced after anti-racism campaigner and
anti-fascist Suresh Grover and immigration caseworker Bobby Chan were
sent text messages telling them to leave the country

In addition to the issue of harassment of migrant workers, this
case is all the more chilling because of what it proves about government
agencies having access to and knowledge of everyone's mobile phone
details, and because it shows the govt using that information to target
intimidation at anti-racist campaigners -

Less
than two weeks since the Home Office anti-immigration vans were banned
by the advertising watchdog for using “misleading” statistics, the UK
Border Agency has come under fire for telling an anti-racism campaigner
and an immigration adviser to leave the country in a text. On behalf of
UKBA, private contractor Capita sent leading campaigner Suresh Grover a
text telling him he had no right to live here. The same text was sent to
Bobby Chan, an Immigration Caseworker at Central London Community Law.

Mr
Grover, who founded the anti-racism charity The Monitoring Group, has
campaigned for justice for Stephen Lawrence, Zahid Mubarek and Victoria
Climbie. He also runs race relations advice surgeries across London. He
told the Independent “ I was absolutely shocked and quite horrified to
receive the text. I thought it wasn’t meant for me. I came here with my
parents in 1966, I was born in East Africa and have always had a British
passport.”

Mr Grover rang the number on the text and got
through to Capita. They told him that he was indeed the right recipient
of the text. Despite explaining he had lived in Britain for 50 years,
the woman on the other end of the line pressed for more information.
“The more I talked to the woman the more angry I got,” Mr Grover said.

“She
was asking for more personal information about me and was not telling
me where she got my number. I’m not going to be giving them information I
don’t think they deserve. I think it’s outrageous sending people random
texts without knowing who they are sending them to. I was angry but i
was also bemused, because of the work I do. But I think people who don’t
work in this area may take them seriously and be worried they don’t
have the right to live in the UK. It’s horrific.”

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Ex-EDL leaders will not face court over alleged obstruction of police

Tommy Robinson (real
name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) arrives at Westminster magistrates' court,
where he discovered the case had been discontinued. Photograph: Anthony
Devlin/PA

Two former English Defence League
leaders will not have to answer a charge of obstructing police after
prosecutors deemed there was insufficient evidence against them.
Tommy
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and his second
cousin Kevin Carroll were accused of trying to defy a ban on marching to
the scene of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby passed a mosque.
The pair each denied a charge of obstructing police outside Aldgate East Tube station, east London, on 29 June.
When
Yaxley-Lennon arrived at Westminster magistrates' court to stand trial
on Wednesday morning, he discovered the case had been discontinued. The
Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to bring
the case.
The pair were attempting to stage what they claimed was
a charity walk to Woolwich Barracks, in south-east London, via the East
London Mosque, with a plan to lay flowers in memory of Fusilier Rigby
in Woolwich on Armed Forces Day.
Police said they offered two
alternative routes that avoided Tower Hamlets, home to the East London
Mosque, and warned that anyone who tried to march to Woolwich would face
arrest.
A CPS spokeswoman said: "Both defendants were charged by
police with obstructing a police officer in the execution of her duty,
contrary to s89(2) Police Act 1996. The file was then passed to CPS
London to prepare the prosecution case.
"When this case was
reviewed, the lawyer concluded that there was insufficient evidence to
prove that the actions of the suspects amounted to the offence of
obstructing a police officer in the execution of her duty, contrary to
s89(2) Police Act 1996. We therefore discontinued the case."
The pair, who set up the EDL in 2009, disclosed their withdrawal from the group this month.
Yaxley-Lennon
will appear at the same court later on Wednesday to answer two further
public order charges relating to an EDL demonstration in east London on 7
September.
He is accused as a public assembly organiser of
failing to comply with the condition of limiting speeches at the rally
to 30 minutes. He is also alleged to have incited others to breach the
condition. He has indicated that he will plead not guilty to the
charges.http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/16/edl-tommy-robinson-carroll-cps-drop-charges

Monday, October 14, 2013

Mainstream baffled as French turn to far right

French far-right Front National party President Marine Le Pen
and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen acknowledge the audience at the party's
summer congress on September 15, 2013 in Marseille, southern France

Bruno Gollnisch, Front National far-right party candidate for
the municipal elections in Hyeres, France, poses on October 14, 2013

Marine Le Pen, president of the French far-right Front National
party, delivers a speech on October 12, 2013 in Paris

AFP - France's mainstream political parties were Monday
scratching their heads over what to do about a surge by the Front
National (FN) after a breakthrough by-election win for the far-right
party.
The ruling Socialist party and the centre-right Union for a
Popular Movement (UMP), the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy,
face humiliating reverses in municipal and European elections next year
if the FN can sustain its current standing in the eyes of an electorate
thoroughly fed-up with record unemployment, rising taxes and a perceived
increase in crime and insecurity.
A poll published last week
suggested the FN could emerge as the best-supported party in the
European elections with 24 percent of those asked declaring themselves
ready to back the party led by Marine Le Pen, the daughter of FN founder
Jean-Marie Le Pen.

That
shock survey was followed on Sunday by a spectacular victory for the FN
in a local by-election in Brignoles, where FN candidate Laurent Lopez
claimed 53.9 percent of the vote in a run-off against the UMP candidate.
"The
left and the mainstream right are blaming each other for what is
happening, but the reality is they've both been knocked sideways," said
Nonna Mayer, the Research Director at the National Research Centre CNRS.
"Neither of them know what to do."
There were particular, local
factors in Brignoles which influenced the outcome of a vote being held
for the third time, the result having been judged too close to stand on
two previous occasions, when the run-off was between the FN and the
Communist Party.
The southeastern town has struggled with high
unemployment since the closure of local aluminium mines in the 1990s and
the gloomy economic backdrop has exacerbated tensions between
established residents and a large community of North African immigrants,
creating fertile ground for the FN in a region where it traditionally
does better than elsewhere in France.
But the scale of the victory
for Lopez was nevertheless widely interpreted as an indicator of how
the FN is capitalising on current voter concerns to appeal to a broader
slice of the electorate than ever before.
A smartly-dressed former
businessman, Lopez, 48, is the perfect embodiment of the more
voter-friendly image that the FN has projected since Marine Le Pen took
over from her controversial father at the head of the party in 2011.

Harder to treat as a pariah party

The
pledges to end net immigration, most controversially by ripping up
family reunion rules, and to begin moves to pull France out of the
European Union, remain in place.
But the FN is now far from being
a one-issue party, notably making its voice heard on education to the
extent that it has recently been able to announce the creation of a
network of supporters amongst teachers - an unthinkable development a
decade ago.

Marine Le Pen, has worked hard to dispel the image of the party as fundamentally racist.
She
has expelled activists who make bigoted public statements and the FN
lists in next year's municipal elections will include a handful of
ethnic minority candidates.
All of which is making it harder for
the mainstream parties to prevent the FN from winning more than a
handful of elected posts by treating it as a pariah party and urging
their voters to cast their ballots tactically to keep them out of power,
an approach referred to as the "Republican Front".
"I think we
can safely say the Republican Front is now dead," Marine Le Pen declared
after Sunday's triumph in Brignoles, and her opponents acknowledged
that she was probably right.
"It just doesn't work, voters don't
like being told who to vote for," said Thierry Mandon, the spokesman for
the Socialists' parliamentary party.
Despite the current disarray
of the mainstream parties, the CNRS's Mayer still believes the recent
upturn in the fortunes of the FN remains primarily a protest phenomenon.
"The
change of leadership has given the party a slightly slicker image, but
for most French people, it remains an extreme right party founded on
racist ideas which is incapable of governing," Mayer told AFP.
"Marine
Le Pen does have a better image than her father. Unlike him she is not
associated with the legacy of the second world war and anti-semitism.

"Local
factors played heavily in their favour in Brignoles. On a national
level there is enormous disappointment after a year of the Socialists
back in power, and the issues of crime and insecurity are beginning to
weigh heavily in the national debate, which plays in the FN's favour.
"But
don't forget that, in the municipals, the FN will have candidates in
one town in six at most. It is not as strong as it pretends to be."http://www.france24.com/en/20131014-mainstream-baffled-french-turn-far-right

Sunday, October 13, 2013

How to welcome unwanted immigrants the Russian way !

Over 380 detained after anti-migrant riot in southern Moscow

Moscow police said they detained some 380 people
during the mass rioting in a southern district of the city. A mixed
crowd of nationalists and locals attacked a warehouse run by natives of
the Caucasus, blaming a migrant for the fatal stabbing of a local.
Moscow police said they were putting into effect an emergency
plan, codenamed “Volcano,” involving sending scores of riot
police to the scene of the clashes, and placing the police
officers across the city on high alert.
A crowd of people on Sunday broke into a vegetable warehouse in
the southern district of Biryulyovo, hurling rocks, smashing up
stalls and vending machines. While the police estimated the crowd
at about 350 people, witnesses at the scene suggested the number
of rioters could be as many as 1,000.

A
man hits a vending machine with a traffic cone in a vegetable warehouse
complex in the Biryulyovo district of Moscow October 13, 2013 (Reuters /
Maxim Shemetov)

Some of the most aggressive participants of the unrest clashed
with riot police and attempted to block the street after several
people were detained and forced into police vans.
Riot police, who were about 200 strong at the time, failed to
block part of the crowd from rushing in the direction of the
warehouse.

The violent scenes came after a similar rampage took place at a
nearby shopping center, where the rioters had originally
gathered. The outraged crowd demanded that the police find the
killer of a 25-year-old Russian, who was stabbed to death on
Thursday allegedly by a man from the Caucasus or Central Asia.
The locals also lashed at the the authorities, accusing them of
covering the wave of migrant crime and the illegal immigration in
the area.
Reports said that the police did not interfere while a crowd of
rioters looted the warehouse and the mall, but later started to
arrest those who remained on the scene. RT’s Lucy Kafanov
reported that the situation in the district was largely settled
by nightfall.
However, later on Sunday some 300 people gathered near the
devastated shopping mall and reportedly tried to block the nearby
road again. The mob began to hurl bottles at riot police after
they attempted to prevent the action, said a Ridus.ru
correspondent, who was hit by one of the bottles.

RIA Novosti / Ramil Sitdikov

He added that the police responded forcefully and began detaining
“each and all, including journalists.”
Police also used helicopters to monitor the situation, RIA
Novosti reported.
The situation remained tense throughout the whole district, with
police sources telling Interfax that a fight between a group of
football fans and a group of men from the Caucasus broke out amid
the riots. Five people have been taken to hospital with various
injuries following the incident, and one more injured person
refused to be hospitalized.

Police authorities said 5 riot police officers were wounded in
the clashes, including a battalion commander.

At least 11 other people sought medical help in connection with
the riots, medics said, adding that none of them were seriously
injured.

Anti-migrant protesters attack shopping mall

Residents of the Biryulyovo district in southern Moscow took to
the streets following the fatal stabbing of Egor Shcherbakov, a
Muscovite, earlier in the week. Late on Thursday evening, when
Shcherbakov and his girlfriend were on their way home, the young
couple were attacked by an unidentified man who stabbed
Shcherbakov with a knife.
Shcherbakov’s girlfriend described the attacker as a male native
of the Caucasus and said that he had assaulted her boyfriend
after trying to harass her.
On Saturday a group of about 40 people gathered for a protest in
the area, urging the police to find and punish the attacker. They
demanded that the district’s police chief resign, and that a
local vegetable warehouse, where many migrants work, be closed.
However, the protest was followed by an unsanctioned rally on
Sunday, which turned violent as hundreds of angry protesters
attacked a shopping mall – attempting to set it on fire and
breaking windows. A group of people among the crowd reportedly
broke into stores, ransacking them and looting goods.
Several police officers were injured by bottles thrown by
protesters, while an elderly female relative of Shcherbakov’s
narrowly escaped being hit by one of the bottles.
Protesters demanded that all the suspected rioters detained by
the police should be freed, and ignored police attempts to calm
the crowd. Police told the crowd to disperse, as the protest was
not sanctioned by the city administration, as required by law.

Suspect in Egor Shcherbakov's killing (Photo from CCTV camera as published by Interior Affairs Ministry)

However, the crowd refused to disperse. Chanting nationalist
slogans, protesters attempted to block a road and turned over
vehicles and dumpsters, before heading to the vegetable
warehouse.
Witnesses said that many of those taking part in Sunday’s riots
were members of radical nationalist groups.
Egor’s girlfriend said she was against such protests, since she
did not want “interethnic conflicts” to be inflamed. “I
know this crime won’t remain unpunished,” she told Moskva 24
TV channel.
The Russian Investigative Committee on Sunday said that its
leading criminalists, as well as the most experienced Moscow
police field officers have joined the investigation of the case.

More than 90 people have been questioned in connection with the
killing, the Committee added.
Moscow police promised to pay up to one million rubles for
information that would help to identify and find the murder
suspect.
Some 80 illegal immigrants were also detained as the search for
the murder suspect unfolded.
Meanwhile, authorities in Moscow’s Southern Administrative
district have decided to set up an operation headquarters to
counter illegal migration. The body – comprised of police,
federal migration service representatives and voluntary people’s
guard – will gather daily. The new foundation will focus on
identifying flats rented to illegal migrants, patrolling streets
and organizing sweeps on reports from citizens, the prefecture’s
press service told Interfax.

People
turn over a kiosk in a vegetable warehouse in the Biryulyovo district
of Moscow October 13, 2013 (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)

Fears of a recurrence of Manezhnaya unrest

Police have closed public access to Moscow’s central Manezhnaya
Square and increased presence in nearby streets. Law enforcers
used metal fences to cordon off part of the square above the
underground the Okhotny Ryad shopping center – a popular place
among Muscovites and tourists, particularly on weekends.
According to RIA Novosti, the situation in the area is generally
calm and so far no aggressive groups have been
noticed.
Earlier, some activists used social networks to urge Biryulyovo
protesters to come to Manezhnaya square, which was the site of
one of Russia’s worst nationalist riots almost three years ago.
On December 11, 2010, about 5,000 football fans gathered on the
square near the Kremlin to commemorate the death of a Spartak
Moscow supporter, Egor Sviridov. The 28-year-old was shot dead in
a brawl with a group of men originally from Russia’s North
Caucasus. However, what started as a peaceful protest turned into
a violent rally as soccer supporters and nationalists clashed
with police. Dozens of protesters were detained.
Following the Manezhnyaya Square incident, authorities stepped up
the fight against extremism and xenophobia. The
government has also toughened punishment for organizing illegal
immigration.
However, the situation still remains tense in Russia - home to
about 185 different ethnic groups.
Just in July, residents of the south-eastern town of Pugachyov
staged mass protests demanding that ethnic Chechens be forcefully
removed from the area after a local Russian man was stabbed to
death, allegedly by a Chechen teenager.
Domestic migration has been on the rise in recent years, which
often leads to inter-ethnic tensions. Millions of
immigrants also come to Russia from former Soviet republics
seeking work and better life.
According to statistics announced in spring by the Federal
Migration Service, there are over 3 million illegal immigrants in
Russia and 11 million legal visitors. However, unofficial
estimates put the number of illegal immigrants at 10-12
million.

Russian police detain a man after a protest in the Biryulyovo district of Moscow October 13, 2013 (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)

Saturday, October 12, 2013

12 Things You Should Know About The Royal Mail Sell-Off

I was pleasantly surprised by the success of my 12 Things you should know about the Daily Mail slur campaign against Ralph Miliband article,
so I thought I'd give the extended bullet points format another shot,
but this time on a much more serious subject; the sell-off of the Royal
MailSo here we go - 12 things you should know about the Royal Mail privatisation:A bit of Royal Mail historyThe Royal Mail
can trace its history back to the appointment of a "master of the posts"
by Henry VIII. It was run purely as a means of establishment
communication until Charles I made the service available to the public
in 1635. The first designated Royal Mail coaches, featuring Royal Mail
livery, appeared in the 18th Century, and in 1793 the Royal Mail
Investigations Branch was established, making it the World's first
recorded criminal investigations authority.The first Royal
Mail train, between Manchester and Liverpool, began service in 1830 and
in 1838 the Postal Order was introduced. In 1839 the concept of pre-paid
postage was introduced and this was quickly followed by the invention
of the adhesive postage stamp in 1840. The fact that the postage stamp
was invented in Britain is the reason that the Royal Mail postage stamp
is the only one in the world which does not include the name of the
country of origin.The Post Office
was responsible for the UK telephone network from 1912 (when it was
established) until 1980 when the Tories hived off British Telecom as a
separate company, in order to prime it for the privatisation that took
place in 1984.In 2012 the Royal
Mail and the Post Office were divided into separate companies in order
to facilitate the sell-off of The Royal Mail in October 2013.Margaret ThatcherThere has been a
lot of debate over whether the current Tory led coalition is the most
right-wing UK government in living memory, with many people claiming
that the 1979-1990 Thatcher regime
was actually more right-wing. In my view the current government are
significantly more right-wing than Thatcher for many reasons (Secret Courts, Mandatory Unpaid Labour schemes, privatisation of the NHS, privatisation of 1,000 English secondary schools, absurd exercises in retroactive lawmaking and their fixation with the bankrupt and hopelessly discredited neoliberal pseudo-economic dogma
that was new and untested in a democratic environment when Thatcher had
her fixation with it), however the Royal Mail sell-off is particularly
illustrative, given that Margaret Thatcher absolutely refused to
countenance it with the famous and oft quoted statement that she was "not prepared to have the Queen's head privatised".Public opposition 67% of the
public opposed the privatisation of the Royal Mail, compared to just 20%
that approved. When we look at the people that feel strongly about it,
36% of people strongly opposed the sell-off, whilst just a tiny 4%
minority strongly approved. [source]

Given
the strength of public opposition, the Royal Mail privatisation looks
like yet another Coalition own goal for the opposition parties to take
advantage of.

Royal Mail workers were also opposed to the sell-off. 96% of postal workers opposed the privatisation in the CWU ballot in June 2013
and a postal strike looks almost certain. The corporate media narrative
has already been set on this issue. They will claim that the postal
workers are hypocritical for accepting their £2,200 worth of shares
(shares that they can't touch for three years, and will be confiscated
if they lose their job in that period) and that it will be a bad thing
because of the negative effect on the share price!Undervaluation

Before Royal Mail
stock began trading on the 11th of October 2013, the Labour party
produced a report that claimed that by pricing the shares at 330p, the
government were selling it off at significantly below the true market
value.

The Labour analysis showed that the government had
undervalued it by £1 billion (about 30%), whilst other city analysts
have calculated that it had been undervalued by between £600 million and
£2.7 billion (between 22% and 80%).

One
of the key areas in which the Royal Mail was undervalued was the
property portfolio of more than 2,000 locations across the United
Kingdom, which was clearly badly undervalued at just £787 million. The
Royal Mail sell-off prospectus lists several sites as beng surplus to
requirements, including the 8 acre Mount Pleasant sorting office in
Islington, which would be worth over a billion if sold for housing
development. It is no surprise at all that the private company will be
allowed to keep all of the profits from the sale of property assets that
were paid for out of public funds, then flogged off on the cheap.

On
the day of the stock market floatation, the share price immediately
rose from 330p to 450p, before settling down at around 445p, indicating
that the Labour party and the city analysts were right, the Royal Mail
had just been sold off at massively below its market value.

In a
fair world the incompetent (or brazenly corrupt) Tory and Liberal
Democrat MPs that devised this ludicrous undervaluation would be jailed
and the two political parties would be forced to stump up the difference
between their absurd undervaluation and the real value of the Royal
Mail estate. The problem is that we don't live in a fair world, and none
of the people responsible for ripping off the public will ever be held
to account for their actions.The absurdity of the Labour stanceIn the week
before the Royal Mail was sold off Labour adopted the stance, not that
it was wrong to sell-off a public institution against the wishes of the
vast majority of the population, but that the sale price was too low.

Of
course they were right to point out that the government had undervalued
Royal Mail and were selling it off on the cheap, however, this price
complaint hardly harmonised with the strong sense of outright public
opposition.

The reason they couldn't vociferously oppose the
privatisation of the Royal Mail on principle, is that Labour themselves
had planned to sell it off when they were in government. Even though
they have a different leader now, their PR team knew that outright
opposition would leave the door wide open for accusations of hypocrisy
and political opportunism. Hence their quibbling over the valuation of
the stock, rather than representing the views of the overwhelming
majority of the public by stating outright opposition to the sale.Privatisation of the profits

Before the Royal
Mail was sold off the coalition government did something that the
majority of people don't know about. They separated the Royal Mail
pension liabilities in order to keep them on the public books as the
company was sold off. This is an absolutely classic example of lumbering
the public with the debts as the private sector are handed the profits.

The
right-wing press predictably dressed this pensions scam up as some kind
of triumph for sound Tory financial logic, with ridiculous claims that
the £28 billion Royal Mail pensions portfolio would be used to "pay down
the national debt" whilst forgetting to mention that the government
would carry the liability for paying the pensions of all of those
Posties, for decades into the future.

Here's a quote from an MP that was capable of seeing through such a tansparent scam:

"I fear the government is going to steal
£22bn of pension assets, dump the liability as a mortgage on future
generations and dress it up as the salvation of the Royal Mail. Their
plan to steal the pension assets to help reduce their borrowing figures
while taking out a massive mortgage to cover Post Office pension
liabilities for 50 years is nothing more than a massive accounting scam …
This dangerous plan must be resisted."

The problem is
that this opposition was raised by the Tory MP Alan Duncan in 2008 in
opposition to the Labour plans to sell-off the Royal Mail and lumber the
taxpayer with the huge cost of the pensions liabilities. In 2008 he was
deriding this exact strategy as a "massive accounting scam",
now in 2013 he is actually a member of the government that has enacted
exactly the same scam and hasn't raised the slightest whister of
complaint.

Over the next couple of years the mainstream
corporate media will probably tell you a hell of a lot about how much
Royal Mail profits are up since privatisation, and how much of a
wonderful success it's all been. But bear in mind, the old publicly
owned Royal Mail had to pay their own pension liabilities, this new
company has been absolved of those responsibilities entirely, meaning
that the taxpayer is once again left subsidising corporate profits, and
the corporate media once again will be ever so keen to sell the public the narrative that it's been a wonderful success for everyone.Only for the rich

Much has been
made by the right-wing corporate media of the narrative that this
privatisation is allowing ordinary people to invest in the Royal Mail.
The problem with this interpretation is that it is absolute cobblers.

Firstly,
only 30% of the shares to be made available will go to the public,
whilst institutional investors like banks, hedge funds, pension funds
and sovereign wealth funds will be sold 70% of the ludicrously
undervalued shares. It doesn't matter how you dress it up, it doesn't
benefit the public to sell-off an institution that 100% belonged to
them, and then only allow them to buy up only 30% of the shares on
offer. Why on earth should institutional investors like American hedge
funds and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds get more than double the
amount of shares than are made available to the British public? It's
not as if there was no public demand. In fact, given that the public
share offerings were seven times oversubscribed, there was clearly more
than sufficient demand to sell the entire 100% of shares to the British
public. The second
objection is that the paltry 30% of shares that were made available to
the public were sold off in tranches worth £750. Now, perhaps you're so wealthy that this amount doesn't seem like all that much money,
however, to a huge percentage of the population, £750 is an enormous
amount of money, meaning that they were completely priced out of the
market before the sell-off even began. This means that the only people
who will have benefited from the cash windfall from the government
selling off public assets at significantly below their true market
value, are the already well-to-do.

Another factor is the way that
small investors that applied for more than £10,000 worth of shares were
left with nothing, whilst the gigantic hedge fund (with close links to
the Tory party) Lansdowne Partners Limited was awarded £50 million worth
of shares, earning them an instant profit of £18 million when the
ludicrously undervalued shares rose in price on the first day of
trading.

The biggest privatisation since British Rail?It has been
claimed several times that the Royal Mail sell-off is the biggest
privatisation since the hopelessly botched carve-up of the railways back
in 1994, however this is pretty debatable.

OK, the Royal Mail
sell-off is the biggest direct IPO (Initial Public Offering) of shares
in a newly privatised part of national infrastructure since then, but
there have been several other privatisation scams that have taken place
between 1994 and 2013 that weren't done in the form of an upfront public
offering of shares.

One example of a massive privatisation
scheme that has passed completely under the public radar (thanks in a
large part to the complicity of the press and the Labour opposition) is
the fact that half of the secondary schools in England have been privatised, including the buildings, meaning that £billions worth of public property were just given away for free to unaccountable private interests by Michael Gove
and his chums at the Department of Education. What is more is that the
new private owners that have been gifted all of this public
infrastructure (many of them Tory party donors) will receive indefinate
subsidies from the government to cover the entire cost of running the
schools, plus enough left over to hand themselves ludicrous six figure
salaries. The fact that the recipients of all of this public
infrastructure and subsidies are educational pseudo-charities rather
than shareholders in a newly formed company doesn't mean that this
hasn't been a privatisation process.

Another example of a massive privatisation scheme that has passed under the public radar is the carve-up of the NHS.
If all of the NHS services that have been privatised in the last few
years are summed up, they absolutely dwarf the £3.3 billion
undervaluation of the Royal Mail sell-off.ScotlandThe
privatisation of the Royal Mail less than one year before the
Independence referendum in Scotland looks like a deliberate act of
malice. The ruling Scottish National Party and the vast majority of the
Scottish public are opposed to the sale, but the Tories have pushed
through the privatisation of the Scottish Royal Mail regardless.

The
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond had asked for a moratorium on the
Royal Mail privatisation until after the Independence referendum, but
David Cameron and his government ploughed on with the plan to sell it
off at significantly below its market value.

Here's an objection that actually means nothing to me, but may well carry some weight with those with monarchist predilections:

In
the 447 page prospectus for Royal Mail investors it was admitted that
the Royal Mail may have to drop the use of royal insignia after
privatisation. This could spell the end for the use of the royal E II R royal cypher on post boxes, and the right to use the crown insignia could be withdrawn at any time.

In the wake of
the global financial sector meltdown the Lib-Dem Treasury Spokesperson
Vince Cable earned himself the reputation as a politician that actually
understands economics, with several economically literate observations
about the ongoing crisis and for the fact that he had repeatedly raised
concerns about the levels of debt within the economy before the crisis
happened.

After
being sidelined by the Tories, Vince seems to have been slowly going
mad. The early signs became visible when he began promoting his
conception of "responsible capitalism" to anyone that would
listen, but did so at a time when corporate executives and shareholder
dividends were soaring, paid for at the direct expense of productive
capital investment and labour force wages.
The corporate response to the economic crisis was to hoard cash and to
fill executive pockets like never before, George Osborne facilitated
this process by slashing corporation tax and deliberately opening up tax-loopholes for the benefit of British corporations, yet "Saint Vince" was waffling away irrelevantly about his utopian conception of ethical capitalism.

By 2013 "Saint Vince" had gone completely mad, the most visible demonstration being his decision to compare the Bank of England to the Taliban
because they wouldn't relax the tiny capital reserves they expect
private banks to hold in comparison to the amount of money they lend
out. Not only was the Taliban comparison insanely disproportionate, the
demand that capital ratios be relaxed directly contradicts the "too much
debt" stance that won him so many plaudits when the financial crisis
hit, because his comments were essentially a desperate and offensively
worded appeal for the Bank of England to allow the creation of even more
debt!

Vince Cable's fingerprints are all over the Royal Mail
undervaluation. In my view ths is hardly a coincidence. The Tories knew
that this appalling privatisation scam was going to be extremely
unpopular with the public (see the Alan Duncan quote above), so it
clearly suited their interests to lumber some naive Lib-Dem patsy with
it. Essentially they've got sick of "Saint Vince" and his inconvenient
ramblings, so they've shoved the mad old bastard under a bus.A Tory Own-Goal?

Another
admission in the 447 page prospectus is that a privatised Royal Mail
could soon cease to provide universal coverage. The withdrawal of
delivery services in order to cut costs and boost corporate profits
would hit rural areas particularly hard, and we all know that the
British countryside is absolutely riddled with Tories.

I know
from personal experience that country dwelling Tories are the type of
people to get extremely worked up about the fact that their bin
collection service has been changed from a weekly to a fortnightly
service, so they are hardly likely to react calmly when their postal
service is cut off and they're compelled to drive to the nearest town in
order to pick up their mail from a Post Office box instead.

Probably
the only people with more fealty to the Tory party than the rural
farmer, is the investment banker, however, the cancellation of their
postal services is one of the things that is likely to drive them to
distraction so much that they'll consider either jumping ship to vote
for UKIP, or to give up hope and not even bother voting at all.

Conclusion

There's really
not much to conclude other than the Tory led government have once again
sold off the family silver on the cheap. The public should be apoplectic
with rage that they undervalued the Royal Mail so badly in their
desperation to sell it off as quickly as possible. But as usual public
anger will eventually simmer down and people will forget that the Royal
Mail was sold off on the cheap against their wishes. Then they'll queue
up to vote for one of the three establishment parties that believe the
opposite, that the Royal Mail is better off under the private ownership
of American hedge funds, French pension portfolios and Middle Eastern
sovereign wealth funds than under the democratically administered
ownership of the UK taxpayer.